RESTART
by Cereology
Summary: Sequel to Nightmaric End. Two friends discover the arcade's secrets and play as Vanellope throughout many games guarded by Turbo's mutated minions. Vanellope must conquer the horrors of Turbo's wrath and take him down to bring peace to the arcade. Our world has met the game, insert coin to restart. Mild language, blood/gore, and violence.


.:**RESTART**:.

Warning

This fanfiction is a sequal to _Nightmaric_ _End_, after the Arcade has been shut down. All rights belong to Disney. Intense blood, gore, violence, and mild language is in store. Reader discretion is advised.

**.:Chapter 1:.**

* * *

A night had never seemed to cold, yet so perfect for the stalking. Crunching of crisp fallen leaves could barely be heard through the howl of cold winds that swept over the parking lot of the old arcade that could send shivers down your spine. There were no clouds, just small sparkling stars and an almost faded waning crescent moon that offered little light.

"Got the camera?" spoke a young feminine voice in a hushed tone. The windows of the store were filthy and littered with old faded signs, as if gray dirt and dust has been thickly pasted to it layer after layer. Only the center of the windows were somewhat see-through, though there was nothing inside that could be seen; only darkness, giving it an eerie appearance.

"Yeah. Think we'll catch anything?" said a male voice, young in pitch. The faded yellow bricks of the arcade were stained with red rust streaks that leaked from the roof which was sunken in and dilapidated, the clay shingles cracked and barely held together.

"No, I don't think the place is haunted." the girl responded, her shadowy figure barely noticeable in the dark shadows with only the moonlight illuminating her figure in a dim silhouette. The baseball cage was rusted with holes in the netting from where animals had torn through and rehabilitated themselves inside, nesting in the old baseball machinery that sat inside.

"I think its haunted by Litwak. Rumor says the games came to life and killed him, so now he haunts the arcade and traps kids inside if they try to play any of the games." the boy said with an uncanny resonance, as all ghost stories should be spoken in. The parking lot was gray and cracked with weeds growing within the splits, untouched by rubber tires in many years. Only the soles of worn tennis shoes had touched such a desolated area, only to peer inside with curiosity, as these two young teens were doing. Their foreheads stuck to the dirty glass with their hands cupping their sockets like binoculars. This however was ironic seeing is how it was night-time, but habit prevailed.

"I don't believe that, Mike. I think he was electrocuted and caused all the games to go haywire. Science explains everything, simple conductivity issues. Besides, Litwak would never do such a thing, even if ghosts were real." the girl gaily replied before breathing on the glass and wiping away the fog with her sleeve. It did no use, the dust was inside. Mike scuffed his foot on the ground and felt the sole stick to an edge, and knelt down to feel what it was. The edges were small, and felt like quarters, hundreds of quarters that had been super glued down on the concrete in front of the doorway. This was the children's way of honoring Litwak after his death. Litwak was one of the kindest men in town, and was great with children of all ages. Even the adults were astounded when he made them feel like children again when they played in his arcade. He truly was missed by every child in town.

"Suzy, science can't always solve something. But we'll never know if we don't go in there for ourselves and take a look around. Now c'mon, I know a way inside. Its around back, follow me." Mike began a slow jog around the corner of the building, and Suzy followed, barely able to see him.

Mike wiggled the handle to the backdoor, which easily broke due to rust on the inside, and he opened the door. It squeaked loudly, and the dried dirt that sealed the door to the frame cracked and rained down lightly. The old smell of the dusty arcade blew outwards in a gust of sealed wind, set free by the open door. The smell was musty and thick, somewhat heavy to the lungs that took it in, causing Mike to wave away the dust in front of him for a cleaner breath. Suzy did the same as she followed behind him. The two stepped inside, close together for safety.

"Suzy, where's your flashlight?" Mike asked, slightly coughing. A few seconds passed as Suzy dug around her jacket pocket and grabbed the flashlight, flipping it on. The yellow light beamed at Mike's face and he squinted. His dark brown eyes were blinded by the sudden light that lit up his pale face, lined with grown chocolate hair that swept over his forehead. "Hey!"

"Sorry! Sorry." Suzy giggled as she aimed the light away from him, lighting up a small portion of the room. Rusted pipes, old moldy boxes, and sinking shelves lined the walls with an inch of dust on the floor. "Wow, this place is a dump. Can't imagine what the inside-inside looks like."

"It hasn't been touched in like what? 10 years? Everyone says the cops left everything inside just the way it was after they took Litwak to the morgue. My parents say they were too scared to go in and clean everything out, so it can't be too messy."

Suzy stepped to another door that would lead them deeper into the arcade. The light from her flashlight barely lit her up for Mike to see. Her hair was blonde, short and curled outwards with a hair band on her head to hold back her bangs. She wore small black glasses that she pushed upwards with her thumb often, and her cheeks were littered with light freckles.

"I don't think I wanna' go in anymore. Lets just go home." she said as she backed up from the door. Mike sighed and took the flashlight from her and put his hand on her scrawny shoulder.

"Don't you wanna' see what all the rumors about? We could be the only ones in school to actually know the truth. We could solve the biggest mystery in town!" he smiled as he slightly shook her excitedly. It was true, the shut down of Litwak's Family Fun Center was the biggest mystery in town. No one spoke of it, no one knew the answer. Not even the authorities knew exactly what happened, the only report they could confirm was a dead body and blank screen games.

"I'm scared, Mike. What if-" she stuttered out while crossing her fingers over, whittling them nervously. Mike put his hand over hers and seized her figiting, making her look at him for reassurance.

"Suzy, everything will be alright. I'm here with ya', what's the worst that could happen?" Mike smiled and opened the door slowly, and heard the echo of yet another creaky door break through its dusty seal. He shined the flashlight through as he stepped into a new room, and saw the ancient video games at a distance. The two walked down the dark hallway where the wallpaper began to peel downwards, passed the restrooms, and into the arcade room. Nothing but dull, gray, dusty machines lined every inch of the walls. Islands of big games, like the old Dance Dance Revolution platform and the Whack-a-Mole sat in the center of the room, along with motorcycle racers and flat screen TVs. Mike pointed the flashlight at every game, hardly seeing the screens that were covered in thick dust, but could make out easily recognizable games such as Sugar Rush and Hero's Duty. Every game was covered, and Suzy followed Mike, trying to read the names of the games.

"Wow. I remember all of these games." she breathed and pushed up her glasses, squinting to read 'PAC-MAN' on the side of a game console. Mike nodded as he spotted an old faded pink racing game with two seats.

"Sugar Rush." he read, smiling a bit. "I remember playing that game, there was this one character that I loved playing as. Forgot his name though, it was King...somethin'. Fastest race cart ever." he blew away the dust on the side of the console and spotted the racer with a black pony tail in a white kart. "Never saw her in the roster though."

"That was such a girl's game, Mike." Suzy laughed before she spotted a familiar game with a handy man on the side of the console, wearing a blue hat and holding a golden hammer. She wiped away the dust to see better and gasped.

"Psh, it was still fun." Mike sneered as he kept looking around.

"Mike, I remember this game, this was the game that bugged out on me on my birthday. All the characters were running around and the joystick was moving on its own. But the wrecking guy wasn't there. Wonder where he went?" she put her hand on her hip and tilted her head to the side, still puzzled from that day.

"Maybe he ran off?" Mike laughed jokingly and made his way over to the counter, where small prizes were held underneath a glass box with an old cash register that sat in the middle. "Hey, wonder if this things still full?" he said, pressing buttons on the register to hear the satisfying 'clicks'.

"No, Mike, that's Litwak's money!" Suzy scolded and waved him off.

"I'm not gonna take anything, calm down, jeez." he sighed and rolled his eyes as he began feeling underneath the counter, and slipped his fingers into the crack of the cabinets beneath the prize stand. "What's down here?"

"Probably spiders and more dust. Maybe a booby-trap."

"No, there's a bunch of buttons down here." Mike shined the flashlight in the cabinets to see a multitude of buttons with yellow faded labels beside them. Each button was differently colored, but so tempting to push.

"Don't push them, for all we know, those could be self-destruct buttons." Suzy wiped off the screen of Fix-It Felix Jr. and blew away the rest and sneezed. "Good heavens..."

"Lets see." Mike smiled as he pressed one button after another, until he reached a big red button, bigger than the others. He hummed to himself curiously and pressed the button, and a sound of whirring electricity buzzed throughout the walls and floors of the arcade. It almost seemed as if the floors vibrated and it felt like the walls were going to cave in. The lights flashed on row after row in a flicker, and the games powered on one by one. Music began to play from the games, yet they buzzed and skipped in somewhat of a synchronized way. Internal roulette games began to spin, the balls from the skeeball ramps let themselves loose and clanked against each other in sharp pitches of noise, and the skill cranes began to move on their own and drop onto faded prizes. The whole arcade that was once a desolated, dark, dusty graveyard of games, now buzzed and sang with life. Yet, it was all so eerie. Something wasn't right, the games were in sync with each other, their music put together sounds that were like words that couldn't be made out.

Suzy gasped and backed away from the games and glared at Mike with irritation. Her cheeks blushed red with anger that a mother would feel towards a disobedient child, and she stomped her foot with her fists balled up until her knuckles bleached white. "MIKE! What on earth do you think you're doing?!" she shouted furiously and Mike stood up quick and straight with his eyes wide.

"I didn't! I..-How was I supposed to know?!" he stuttered as he dropped the flashlight, confused and shaking nervously.

"I swear, if we get caught, I'm gonna-!" she held out her hands with tense fingers as if she was trying to strangle him from 10 feet away.

"Cheese and rice, Suzy, calm down! I can handle this." Mike growled as he kneeled back down to turn off the button.

"Turn it off! Turn it all off before somebody sees!"

"_No_!" yelled a voice, a high pitched, computerized voice that came from behind the two where the row of games sat. Suzy and Mike froze in their spot, assuming that it was a cop. Their eyes widened and they held their breath for a few seconds. Mike stood back up slowly, looking behind Suzy to see the source of the voice.

"Mike..." Suzy swallowed as she turned out to see as well, but there was no one behind her, only the flashing games.

"_Don't turn off the games, no_!" yelled the voice again, and Suzy instinctively turned her head towards Fix-It Felix Jr., where the sound came from, holding her breath.

"Who...who is that?" Mike swallowed hard as he slowly came up behind Suzy, looking at the game screen as well. The two could spot something moving in the pixelized penthouse on the screen, a little character of brown, mint, and black.

"_Please don't turn off the games_!" repeated the character that stood in the doorway of the penthouse. Her little pixels moved in odd ways and turned purple at times.

"Mike, did the game just talk to us?" Suzy whispered, not taking her eyes off the screen.

"_I did, and I beg you, don't shut me off_." the character pleaded.

Suzy gasped and backed up whilst grabbing Mike's black hoodie tightly between her fingers. "O-oh my god, it can hear us, Mike. It can hear us!"

"_My name is Vanellope, not 'it'_. _I need help. Please_." the little character known as Vanellope begged, her little pixels moving with her words.

Mike's jaw dropped, and he couldn't help but lean in towards the game. Suzy cried as she kept pulling at his hoodie. "Lets get out of here! Its haunted!" she yelped.

"No wait!" Mike tugged back to get closer to the game. "You're name is Vanellope?"

"_Yes. What are your names_?" Vanellope replied.

"I'm Mike. This is Suzy. How can you talk to us? Are you a ghost?"

"_Mike and Suzy... I'm not a ghost, and I've always been able to hear you, I could hear and see everyone in the arcade before the accident happened. I'm part of the game, Sugar Rush. We all were part of a game once_." Vanellope explained softly, looking up at the screen to see the two kids. In the game world, Vanellope was about their age; a teen. She was taller, thinner, and her hair that was still up in a pony tail was longer, much longer. Her legs were longer and more defined, as were her arms, chest, and waist. Since she had been out of her game for so long without resetting for years, her updated coding allowed her to age. It was a strange thing, and it never made any sense to her. Then again, she had been asleep for nearly 10 years, she wasn't even sure that she was older.

"You mean...like, all the video game characters could talk?" Mike asked, tilting his head to the side and cocked his eyebrow.

"What happened?" Suzy added, leaning in slightly as interest swept over her. This was a scientific phenomena, games communicating to the real world!

Vanellope hesitated to speak from a combination of faint memories and sorrow that flashed behind her eyes all too quickly. She warmed up and began to think, seeing each gruesome scene of the past fly by in red hues. She took a moment to speak.

"Turbo..." she finally responded with anger in her voice. "He destroyed...everything."

"Turbo?" Mike and Suzy asked simultaneously, exchanging looks.

"He was a racer that took over my game and disguised himself as our king. King Candy, he called himself." she said, only knowing who Turbo was from Calhoun. In their last moments, Calhoun had informed Vanellope as much as she could.

Mike gasped as he looked back at the pink racing game behind him with wide eyes, not believing Vanellope's words. "You mean, he wasn't really part of the game?"

"No. I don't know how he did it, and I don't know what he had against me. All I know is that he tried to keep me from reaching the finish line. I don't have any memory as to who I was or what my purpose was. All I know is that I was a racer, and he did everything in his power to keep me from doing the thing I loved most." Vanellope sighed and kicked the dirt in aggravation.

"What a jerk." Suzy huffed and crossed her arms before looking over at Mike. "Favorite character huh?"

"Hes a murderer... He killed my best friend, my only friend... We thought that by blowing up my game, he would've died, but somehow...he survived, and escaped. One by one, he took over every game, hacked its coding, killed everyone, and turned some of the arcade's most beloved characters into...monsters too. They were like his minions, helping him kill off the competition and imbedding codes into the games to keep them alive during an unplugging." Vanellope explained, and hung her head low. "Even me... Somehow, his coding got into mine, tied up like a knot that can't be undone unless there is a full game reset. That's how I survived. I ran into this game and protected the coding. Somehow I know how to hack, its like his knowledge was downloaded into mine. I've been in here ever since."

Suzy and Mike exchanged looks, trying to convince themselves that this was all nonsense, but their minds were too fascinated and tantalized by this. It was so crazy that it had to be true! Suzy looked back at the game and pushed her glasses up.

"Is...is there any way we can help?" she asked, but Vanellope turned away.

"It'd be too much to ask, and too dangerous." she sighed and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder to twirl the locks.

"C'mon, we're the only ones that know about all this, and you need help. There's gotta' be something we can do." Mike added.

"Even if you could help, it'd be too dangerous and useless." Vanellope shut her eyes and tried wishing away the memories.

"We'll do what it takes." Suzy said and took off her glasses. Mike knew she was serious, Suzy only took off her glasses if she meant business.

"Well...from the knowledge that I have, Turbo is unstoppable. Although...somthing tells me that Tapper knows what to do." Vanellope tapped her lips and turned around to face the kids, looking up at them through the giant console screen.

"Tapper?" Mike asked, and looked over his shoulder to see the game Tapper. There seemed to be a...blue and green blob of somesort in the corner, but the pixels made it blurry. "That game over there? How do you get from one game to another?"

"I go through the cord and into Game Central Station, and it takes me to all kinds of different games from there." Vanellope answered. Suzy peered in between the consols to see the cords lead into a multi-outlet converter and smiled.

"Woah..." she breathed in awe.

"I can go to Tapper's, but only so far." Vanellope said. "Turbo has imbedded a code where all characters can't move without someone to move them. It's like our feet are glued to the floor. If you wanna' help me, you have to play as me."

Mike and Suzy took in a breath and scratched the back of their heads. "That's it?" Mike asked.

Vanellope nodded, believing that the two wouldn't bother, until Suzy spoke.

"We can do it. You need to go to Tapper's? We'll get you there." she smiled and slipped her glasses back on. Vanellope looked up and smiled, but felt a deep fear in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't ventured out of Fix-It Felix Jr. in so long. She had no idea what was out there waiting for her, what was lurking in the games. All she knew was that Tapper held answers that could help her. But why Tapper? What could he possibly know that was important?

She wouldn't know until she met him.

_Wait...had she met him before? She couldn't recall if she did, how could she know that Tapper knew..OH forget it!_

"Vanellope? Who are you talking to?" Suzy asked, watching the girl stomp around and ask questions as if there were someone else in the game. Vanellope snapped out of it, not realizing that she was talking out loud. She was going insane, and she wasn't even plugged in for 10 minutes. This was very odd indeed.

"Oh...no one. Well, I'll get going. Be ready to move me around when I enter Tappers, okay?" Vanellope swallowed, and ran off screen.

Mike and Suzy looked at Tapper's and swallowed hard. "I can't believe we're doing this, Mike." Suzy sighed. "I'm not a gamer."

"But I am, and this girl needs help." he responded.

"This is crazy."

"Hehe it is. Now c'mon, get your game face on." Mike chuckled.

* * *

~End of Chapter 1~

Well now we know how Vanellope survived the unplugging. However, we still don't know how Turbo was able to survive that explosion, but like Vanellope's split personality said; only Tapper will know. This is only game start, more will be revealed as we dive in deeper. Theres a lot more to Turbo than we see. Thank you and be sure to review if you enjoyed the first chapter, or have any speculations as to whats going on! Remember, this is a sequel to Nightmaric End. You will NOT understand whats going on if you don't read that story first!


End file.
